January 28, 2008

That's how Toni Morrison described Bill Clinton. But now, she's supporting Obama, and it's not necessarily a contradiction. He's definitely blacker than Hillary Clinton, and Morrison never said that the blackest candidate ought to win. Her standard is somewhere in here:

In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it.

Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace - that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.

Translate that purple prose, please.

Finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. I suspect that reflects a theory of government I'd object to if I could see through the incredibly annoying writing.

ADDED: If Frank J. wants to call Toni Morrison "a racist dumbass of monumental proportions" with any credibility, he ought to proofread his own writing. His headline — "Just So Someone Says It Publically" — has a gross misspelling. And whining about a class where he had to read "Beloved" and got a bad grade on his paper for "saying exactly what I thought of Toni Morrison," he tries this quip: "Man did I need a Tom Clancy novel as a pallet cleanser after that." Frank, a "pallet" is a narrow hard bed. Perhaps the pages of a pulpy novel are useful to soak up after an episode of bedwetting.

AND: Yes, yes, I know I typoed "necessary" for "necessarily" in the second sentence of the original post. (Now corrected.) If you want to criticize someone for bad spelling, you can never make a typo? I guess not. But Frank J. called Toni Morrison "a racist dumbass of monumental proportions," which was an incredible insult, and I thought he needed some push back.

128 comments:

I'd say she was going for "treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease", plus adjectives (TM rhhardin).

Personally I reject the idea that wisdom is some kind of found item that you can't earn. Wisdom comes with experience. I agree that knowledge acquisition doesn't necessarily lead to wisdom; we all know book-smart idiots. But hearing an inexperienced person praised as "wise" rouses my skepticism; nearly always, I find myself reacting to Obama's purported wisdom the same way I respond to my kids' wilder ideas. None of them really understand enough about the way things really work to know why their ideas, which sound fabulous, won't produce the results they're aiming for.

There have been a lot of tree politicians, whose focus on individual issues offends everyone who realizes that actions have consequences. As a recent example: Taxes too high for your dad's buddies' liking? Cut taxes. War you lied your way into costs more money? Increase spending? Where's the money coming from? Rob the Social Security Trust Fund. Social Security actuarially unsound? Clamor for "reform".

I would be qualified this year but I forgot to send in my yearly dues and so I'm off the list until I sort it out with the qualifications committee. Hopefully, the union will take up my cause so I can get back to work.

Ann, I have a lot of pallets out here. They are made of wood slats spaced apart and used for stacking things on top of them for easy moving. A folklift is usually used to lift them up to be loaded easily. I use them for stacking split wood on top to keep the wood off of the ground. Beds?

"Author Toni Morrison said her endorsement of the Democratic presidential candidate has little to do with Obama's race"

Like I'm believing that all day long. What she's saying is that if you adjust the facts a bit, that if he were instead a blond-haired blue-eyed surferboy from Hawaii, who made president of Harvard Law Review, who finagled his way into the Illinois State Senate, and then into the US Senate, whereupon he immediately began running for president, she'd still be glomming onto him over the Hillster. Yeah, right.

I kept the Newsweek with him on the cover-that said he would build a bridge across the divide.

Now this story of me calling his office it has an unusual similiarity to when I use to call Ted Kennedy's office.

A relative of mine was the longest serving ambassador to Rwanda.

He was aged and going blind and mercifully he didn't have to see how the Clinton/Gore team who conned him into signing a letter of support for ignored Rwanda.

Let's say I was an "idealist" Democrat.

Well...finally some merciful soul at Ted Kennedy's office said "you know you really should call a Republican."

A Republican about Rwanda.

Think about that I was shocked.

And it turned out that Inhofe of Oklahoma, and Dan Mica of Florida had those evil evangelicals pestering the hell out of them about Rwanda and they were actually trying to do something about it.

Fast forward to Darfur and Obama.

I call Obama's office because I fell for the bridge prose and I'm thinking that he might realize that the UN has been worthless, is a den of fraud and abuse and that he should cross the lines in just this one area.

Let me tell you something-

His staff is absolutely brilliant, alluded to the fact that he might just do it-or wanted to.

Well you know maybe Obama was playing the long game and he didn't reveal his hand.

But you have got to wonder just how long he has been doing this, particularly given his voting record not in the US Senate but in the Illinois senate.

So maybe he has been biding his time....

Now Dick Morris has said that Obama has put the Clintons in a double bind during his acceptance speech-about wether or not the race is about race.

But-there is something the Clintons did.

They called him on "The Dream" they brought him home to the hate.

Just in case you "thought" you heard him welcome Reagan Democrats home, just in case you thought he might work with Republicans they the Clintons forced him to re-educate you.

Obama has room for everybody except the military too stupid to actually believe in what they are doing.

If you are military and you believe in what you are doing-

Pity.

Pity the military wants that?

It should be insulting, and Republicans should feel that ultimate threat but they are too busy with their border wars, and gay or abortion eliminating rules, and damn it pork busters.

That's all too important and if the wrong guy gets nominated they are sittin' it out.

I don't know what is worse for the military-well ya I do either way we could end up with the "pity" and we will be the Democrats new minority.

"Imagination" is defined as a creative ability. And underlying this pronouncement is the fallacious notion, shared among a multitude of Obama and Clinton supporters, that wisdom requires absolutely no knowledge or understanding, that it will magically surface on demand.

Morrison's assertion is precisely the type of bilge you should expect when the ignorant and verbose pretend to insight.

AllenS said..."Ann, I have a lot of pallets out here. They are made of wood slats spaced apart and used for stacking things on top of them for easy moving. A folklift is usually used to lift them up to be loaded easily. I use them for stacking split wood on top to keep the wood off of the ground. Beds?"

Yes, that is also a meaning for the word "pallet," with a root in the idea of a bed. (Similar to the "bed" of a truck, probably.) Frank J., however, was not referring to forklifting. He meant "palate."

Wow, first we had whatzisface from Vodka Pundit laying into the dumbass Iowans for voting for Huckabee, now we've got Hoosier Daddy snorting that rural rednecks are too dumb to put the Internet to any good use.

Please remind this poor dumb Alabamian: Which party is it that has no respect whatsoever for red-state voters again?

I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean we're going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America. Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That's what it's meant to do and when it gets overextended, morale drops.

The Dems are falling like Dominoes for Obama. Hey, maybe the titular head of the party, Bill Clinton might, hopefully, put both of his big feet in his mouth again and come out for Obama too. What would Hillary do then?????????

Doyle, exactly how easy would it be to execute the war in Afghanistan if we did not have the bases in Iraq?

I read Woodward's "Bush at War", and got the distinct impression that our early efforts in Afghanistan were greatly hindered because we needed to get the cooperation from certain eastern European nations in order to even get started, and that approval both came at a price and also was not open-ended. In order to be able to stay the course in Afghanistan, we probably need to be in Iraq.

His headline — "Just So Someone Says It Publically" — has a gross misspelling.

Oh Fie! As far as my opinion of Morrison as a writer goes, though, she seems like an intelligent and competent writer, but one who leaves me completely unmoved. This is true of most of the (little) modern literary fiction I've slogged through, though, so it's probably less a Morrison problem than an American Lit Fic problem.

"Just for the record, even though it should be obvious by my nom de plume, I live in Indiana, one of those flyover states which get lumped in with a lot of dumb red necks." Hoosier doncha know there's a big difference between northern and southern rednecks? something to do with grits, NASCAR, first cousins, and deer hunting, I think.

That's it! I knew there was something different about him that I didn't like, and there it is: he's a creative. Do we want an artist as president? I don't. He should be a writer instead and leave governance to others.

Most members of the electorate do not even know who Toni Morrison is. Or care. Applying outcomes based criteria to the current state of the African American community in the US, Clinton couldn't have been whiter, except that he plays saxophone well. By all accounts, they went downhill during Clinton's years. So to quote Phil Ochs, "And it really wouldn't interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends."

Finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it.

I think she's calling for a national boy ranger camp in Terry Canyon.

The phrase that causes my eyebrows to lift is searing vision. Obama and searing vision definitely do not go together. Maybe happy vision, or optimistic vision. But searing? No. Cormac McCArthy Obama is not in the running.

Brilliant. You are a better writer than she. I despise the adulation of rank mediocrities like Morrison and Kent-Dorfmanesque zeros like Cornel West and Kristin Gore. To West's credit, though, he helped steer my sister away from leftism--we were talking and she mentioned him, was surprised I knew who he was, and asked, "I'm concerned that the professor talks about how brilliant [West] is but his writing just seems to string fancy words together and doesn't say anything."

Frank J. is awful. If he were a TV show, he'd be that idiotic polygraph hour. I've always found his "humor" somewhere between pedestrian and cheesy. Without Instapundit, he'd be sleeping under a bridge, cyberically speaking.

Madawaskan,

Nice point re: the hellstorm that Obama wants to unleash on Iraq by precipitously bailing. Is there such a thing as a war of passive aggression?

Doyle,

Please go back to rooting for whatever team you rooted for prior to becoming a Patriots frontrunner. The thought of your support potentially being in the same galaxy as mine makes me want to go for a swim in undiluted bleach. If you claim to be a longtime fan, you are the exception that proves the rule that Pats' fans are not boobs.

And a quick helpful hint, Doyle: it's poor form to inflict yourself on a community that doesn't want you. So in addition to leaving this site, you should look into an uncharted desert isle.

finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape I don't know if she intended it, but to me that's a high-falutin' swipe at Bill C and his midnight basketball politics. The wisdom and creativity bits (two words I wouldn't associate with either Clinton), likewise. Guess her infatuation is over.

"If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word."

Later he stated, "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way."

And,

"Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything."

I can't imagine any democrat saying things like that now, but if they did, man I would vote for them in a heartbeat.

I've never been clear on why, exactly, Morrison's opinions are interesting to anyone. Was there a time when she was widely-read? Do boomers fondly look back on her early career and listen to what she's saying now because of that nostalgia?

Growing up in the 70s and 70s, my only exposure to her was through that silly "first black President" line. Which pretty much got her filed under "nitwit" in my internal card catalog.

Talk about tossing rocks in glass houses. Check your use of the word necessary in the first para. Pointing out how stupid others are because of spelling and/or grammar errors is a risky business, since one can easily find that they've made such mistakes before. Doing so in such an arrogant way only makes you look more foolish.

I went home with a guy. When I woke up I was in between two guys in their bed with both of their arms around me and a persian cat sleeping on my head.

Their bathroom was full of all "Cat in the Hat" crap-lunch boxes, postcards, stuffed animals, pez dispensers, toilet seat cover and stenciled cat in the hat painted wall-it was really scarey.

I didn't know where I was, how I got there and what I did. Very sad.

Well I found out I was in Brooklyn Heights. Did you see me Althouse? I was doing the walk of shame on the streets of Brooklyn Heights at around 12:00 on Sunday morning. My hair looked like Edward Scissorhands.

I arrived back to the safety and fabulousness of Chelsea to two very angry rare clumbers. I am still trying to repair the damage with them but they are still pissed off at me.

I had two martinis and one vodka tonic. I guess I can't drink that much.

I would just like to note the hilarity of getting on FrnakJ's case for misspellings. He's not called FrnakJ for nothing.

Especially, as FrnakJ points out in his update, there's an egregious misspelling in your post as well.But then, it's de rigeur in any Internet posting where you make fun of someone's spelling/grammar for there to be some stuppid mispellling?

Considering that George W. was a one and a half term governor (from a weak governor state no less) who had nothing but a string of bankrupt and failed business ventures prior to that, complaining about Obama's lack of experience is pretty weak.

Then again, considering the disaster that has been the Bush administration--you might have a point.

Well in modern US history, old Harry I think still holds the record for lowest in popularity polls (if those are taken seriously anyway) although Bush is running a close second.

True, FDR had been in the White House for about 12 years when Harry took over. The republicans hated him because there hadn't been a republican president since 1933 and the democrats hated him because he wasn't FDR. Of course he was hated for many more reasons than that but there is a similarity to today's politics. Bush isn't the Ronald Reagan many republicans had hoped for and democrats just hate GWB for being the second Bush to be elected. Truman dealt with a lot of issues; WWII, nukes, Korea, rebuilding Europe, the start of the cold war, etc. Bush has a full plate but I think Harry had a much tougher challenge and as a consequence he will probably keep his "most hated" title.

Passing the Litchgate affords the Ghostly Student an Æternity for Study and Reflection. That I thus have been able to deepen my slight Tincture of Learning since departing this Life so many Years ago, is indeed a Consolation. I confess, however, that my paltry Abilities to play the Critick do not much extend to the flower'd Branches of Rhetorick. Therefore, 'tis with Trepidation, Madam, that I accept your Invitation to explicate Miss Morrison's encomium of Mr. Obama.

Were we to prune Miss Morrison's Silva Rhetoricæ of fœtid Blooms, we might discover three Branches: Upon the First, a Rosy Flow'r of Praisesprouts for Mr. Obama, compleat with Petals for every Virtue; upon the Second grows a Flow'r of Wisdom, copy'd from a Schoolboy's Commonplace Book, & ordin'ry as a Daisy; upon the Last & most Sinister Branch, a Nightshade alarms the Tourist.

Miss Morrison would have Mr. Obama plant a new Eden, or rather, a Garden of Earthly Delights, replacing of the ancient Forest of British Liberty. That this Silvan Glade be occupied from time to time by unworthy Men, does not render it ravag'd; it only appears thus to Those who would grow a Garden trimm'd of every Thorn & Herb. Long Experience hath shewn that the Levellers' Eden does not nourish the Tree of Liberty, whose Branches are Shelter for Men who would not trade their Freedom for a Mess o' Pottage.

Not believing that the Rational & Sensible Mr. Obama would take the slightest Notice of Miss Morrison's silly Maunderings,

I started being an excellent speller after a few years of copying out Derrida into notebooks word for word as a speed check ; and so I finally began to intuit that it was independent and not independant.

Proof reading is another matter. The Paris in the the spring effect is amazing, and you can't see the wrong preposition that your fingers have inserted until several hours later, when you've forgotten what you said.

Considering that George W. was a one and a half term governor (from a weak governor state no less) who had nothing but a string of bankrupt and failed business ventures prior to that, complaining about Obama's lack of experience is pretty weak.

But you think George Bush did an absolutely horrible job -- that he was utterly incompetent both as a political leaders and as commander in chief of the armed forces. So when we point out that Obama and Clinton have even weaker credentials than Bush did, what we are saying is that they have even fewer qualifications than a guy you think was completely unqualified.

You can only dismiss that argument as "weak" by conceding that Bush actually *was* qualified for the job -- and qualified enough that even a less-qualified person still counts as sufficiently qualified. :)

What Morrison missed is that Black Trash saw White Trash and discovered a kindred spirit.

White Trash is mostly rural and Black Trash is mostly urban, but their dysfunctional attitudes and their self-identification as "victim" are identical.

Ask any really black person from the British Commonwealth what (s)he thinks of "African" Americans and you'll understand immediately about Black Trash. If you find one who respects Bill Clinton, let me know.

gullyborg said..."I honestly can't see the relevance of the spelling in FrankJ's post. Nor do you state why, other than to complaing about spelling, you link it."

Look, I think Morrison is overrated and I am sympathetic with all the students and former students who've had her novels inflicted on them, but she's not a "a racist dumbass of monumental proportions" and I wanted to criticize Frank J. for saying that.

Former Law Student: I think that song whenever I see the word "pallet." I like the Jim Kweskin version too, but it's the perfect Mississippi John Hurt song.

"Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings. ... [Emphasis added.]

"Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace - that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom."

Sorry, but purple prose or not, I like this. As for Toni being a "Dumbass" - she's not a "Dumbass" she's a novelist.

Good novelists write well and have great imagination and insight into human behavior. But most of them are unbalanced egoists who can't be trusted with children, sharp objects, or a checkbook. Their flashes of genius are paid with an inability to understand the mundane realities of human society.

Ann, I guess I don't see how an ad hominem attack (and a pretty pointless one at that) constitutes useful push back against inflammatory statements. Explain why you disagree with him; don't make attacks that are prone to so-are-you counterpoints.

my experience has been that A students can write a great paper saying exactly why they don't like a novel or an author.

My experience was that I could either write a paper saying what I really thought about the book we were studying, or I could parrot the professor's opinion at him. The latter invariably got me an "A"; the former usually got me a low "A" or a "B". My advice to college students (then and now) was to never exhibit any independent thought, because neither the professors nor the teaching assistants actually gave a rat's ass what undergraduates think about literature or philosophy. Most importantly: if you parrot back what they've told you, they really have no choice but to give you an "A".

My guess would be that Frank J encountered her writing in one of those political indoctrination classes colleges usually require of freshmen -- the ones we used to call "White Men Are Evil 101". You can't get an "A" in one of those classes without praising the gay, female, and/or non-white authors being studied.

I can remember challenging, as part of a small group of students, on the floor of the Faculty Senate, the position of that august body (it had to do something it didn't want to allow on campus, which isn't really the point, as is not either my opinion then or now--they differ--on the issue). As part of that, I stood up and gave examples of "what "could" be considered as "offensive exposure to"" from a number of the classes that I was taking at the time in front of the very professors from whom I was taking the courses.

It's shocking, I know, but I still got whatever grades I deserved in the relevant course, including an "A" in the class of the professor whom I'd most challenged publicly, and articulately and eloquently, with careful and meticulous citation. That approach, by the way, was the same I took in writing for that class. Was I more careful and diligent due to the other factor? Did I take more care not to commit in my paper what I'd, in effect, accused him of? You bet. You bet. But that was part of the life lesson.

You gotta please The Man. You don't necessarily have to sell your soul to do that.

I'm shocked, Rev, that this is a revelation to you, or that you would give any advice to younger generations even close to otherwise.

And--may I just say this one time only?--I think it's irresponsible to encourage and enable victimhood excuses of this type. On/from any side.

I never had to express any opinion on Toni Morrison, nor have I read any of her.

My category for her is Books Women Buy.

If somebody I read recommended her, I'd read it. It's sort of an early and excellent link-in arrangement.

I can recommend Thyloas Moss though, who gets a link-in from Harold Bloom (The American Religion) for Warmth of Hot Chocolate

...[God] doesn'tfigure many possibilities are open to him. I thinkhe's wise to bide his time although he pales in themoonlight to just a glow, just the warmth of hotchocolate spreading through the body like a subcu-taneous halo. But to trust him implicitly wouldbe a mistake for he then would not have to maintainhis worthiness to be God. Even the thinnest,flyweight modicum of doubt gives God the necessityto prove he's worthy of the implicit trust I cannever give because I protect him from corruption,from the complacence that rises within him sometimes,a shadowy ever-descending brother.

If the rest of FrankJ's oeuvre is any indication, I think his inability to get an A in the class had less to do with a refusal to "praise the gay, female, and/or non-white authors being studied" and more with the fact that he can't mount a criticism of a writer any more complex than the epithet "dumbass," and seems unlikely to string together a coherent sentence under any circumstance. Your mileage may vary, of course.

"...he can't mount a criticism of a writer any more complex than the epithet "dumbass," "

Perhaps.

But do the non-criticisms that receive A's have to be more complex than "dumbass?"

I do think that students are often conditioned not to disagree with teachers and assume that they can't. On the other hand, who am I to say that a particular person is wrong in their particular assessment of a particular situation?

Personally, I think that "creative imagination + brilliance = wisdom" could probably earn the word "dumbass." I know too many foolish old people to think that age equals wisdom, but of those I know who are wise creativity and brilliance are not words I'd ever use. Creativity and brilliance could equally result in truly monumental levels of foolishness.

Wisdom, seems to me, requires a complex understanding of myriad connections and often doesn't translate to eloquence. Most often not, I'd say.

It is not a demonstration of wisdom to fail to understand large systems and I can think of one instance where Obama demonstrated incredible and blatant failure to be wise and that is when he insulted Pakistan in abject ignorance. Someone thoughtful or wise does not behave without considering that he is talking about people with their own priorities and concerns. Someone who is *wise* does not fail to understand that acting tough in one venue is too narrow a view.

I will say that for all the criticism of how Bush has ruined our world reputation Democrats, and Obama is no exception, seem curiously unaware of the portent of the world stage. They seem to think domestically, which isn't bad but is a limitation. And is bad when someone decides to show what a tough guy he is and declares that if he gets to be president, dangit, he'd tell the Pakistanis what-for and he'd get things done.

Where in that is wisdom?

Where in that was an understanding of foreign sovereignty or national pride?

But Obama is likable and can conjure up visions of vast panoramas, a nice change from focusing on individual "trees," and can inspire his audience to nearly religious raptures.

Yay for him.

Just please dear God don't send a situation where he has to actually function on the world stage.

I, too, had to read that book in school, along with "The Bean Trees," a book in which the only male character who wasn't a liar, cheat, degenerate, drunk, junkie, or violent jerk was a:

1 - illegal immigrant2 - who didn't speak English3 - who didn't ever say anything4 - who followed his wife around like a dog on a leash

Every time a man opened his mouth in that book, he was revealed to be some sort of asshole. Try selling a book to high schools that does the same thing for women. Not going to happen!

The only time I got to read about heroic white men was in history class (the NONFICTION part of my lower education).

If someone wants to call Toni Morrison a twit, more power to them. Wisdom is not brilliance + creativity. There are plenty of brilliant, creative artists who couldn't wise their way out of a paper bag. She has a gift for making stupid shit sound interesting if you don't think about it too much. That doesn't make her a great writer, a great person, or even a person worth listening to in general. She's a fraud and a sham like Jesse Jackson, who is also a good speaker. She says she wants to elect the blackest person possible and then she says it's not about color. If someone was saying that about whiteness, I don't think you'd be so confused or so hesitant to challenge them.

Obama, on the other hand, is such a good speaker that he can avoid saying anything of substance, rather than saying substantive things that are stupid but nonetheless sound good to the uncritical ear. It's one thing to applaud substance-free "inspiration." It's quite another to applaud and endorse substantive statements that are wrong.

As a LAW PROFESSOR, surely you are attuned to flowery-sounding sophistry. Surely you agree that Toni Morrison is saying stupid shit. You only react in knee-jerk fashion to the directness with which Frank J. says what you must feel in your own heart.

Kyle, obviously needing a quick grammar review, said since one can easily find that they've

and expressed astonishment at the followup: Touche, and right back at you.

I'll elaborate."One" is singular, "they've" is plural. The correct wording is "since one can easily find that he has." Note you should not, in formal writing, contract "he has" to "he's," although it happens frequently in speech and casual writing.